Climate Change - Who Cares?

By: The Climate Changers

Climate change is a topic that has been rehashed time and time again, but are people tuning in? Is any real progress being made towards protecting and saving our planet?
This interactive article aims to investigate how people really feel about climate change, what climate change means and how it affects us, and why you too should (or shouldn’t) care about it.

PUBLIC OPINION

CURRENT SITUATION

As a refresher, the definition of Climate change is “a long-term change in the average weather patterns that have come to define Earth’s local, regional and global climates” according to NASA. Global warming is a big part of climate change, and is caused by higher-than-normal amounts of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere.

In the past 30 years, world greenhouse gas emissions have increased by nearly 45% at a rate higher than ever before. In fact, according to NASA, carbon dioxide, the largest contributor, is at its highest concentration in the air in 650,000 years! These high levels of Carbon dioxide come mainly from human activities (such as burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and livestock farming) and thus fuel the global warming crisis leading to drastic climate changes across the globe such as increasing temperatures and melting ice caps. [Insert interesting insights from temperature and ice mass graphs]

With increasing temperatures, the summers are increasingly hot and we use more electricity through fans and air conditioning to keep cool. However, this in turn also releases more carbon emissions into the atmosphere further contributing to global warming and perpetuating this vicious cycle of climate change.

EFFECTS ON HUMANS

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WHAT CAN WE DO?

We saw in figure 2 that a lot of people think that citizens in their countries are not doing enough to fight climate change and in the Effects on Humans section that there will be disastrous consequences if climate change continues occurring at its current rate. But have no fear! There are actions that governments are taking and that you can do too to help reduce climate change.

Nearly 200 countries have signed onto the Paris Climate Agreement, a legally binding international accord whose goal is to limit global warming by countries committing to plans and actions to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions (UN Climate Change). Achieving its preferred goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming would mean that hundreds of millions of people could be saved from having their homes flooded or destroyed by natural disasters, as well as reduce melting of the ice caps (Natural Resources Defense Council).

Transportation is a major contributor to carbon dioxide emissions, particularly passenger cars. As companies seek low carbon energy alternatives such as in the development of electric cars, these emissions can be significantly decreased by 2070. In fact, on an individual level, some of the most impactful actions to reduce your carbon footprint are to live car free and take one less airplane flight per year. As mentioned in an article by the BBC, the carbon dioxide emissions from a regular transatlantic round-trip flight is about equivalent to the average yearly emissions of a single person in India! Other actions you might want to consider are supporting the move to low carbon emission alternatives by purchasing green energy, and eating a plant-based diet and/or local-grown food.